Excerpts from mail.fanfic: 24-Apr-96 Re: [FanFic] Overreactions by
Travis Butler@tfs.net 

At the same time... I hate to say it, but you were not terribly polite 
either, from my POV. I'd have to go back and re-read that part of the log 
(which I don't really want to do at the moment, the memory's painful 
enough right now) to re-confirm, but the impression I got then was that 
you were almost insisting that we stop, and being self-righteous about 
it. In that context, saying "I hope the sig war gets killed on the FFML" 
was at least a little inflammatory. That might not have been what you 
intended, and I'm sorry if that's the case, but it's the way you came 
across to me.

That wasn't what I intended.  I was having a bad night, too.  What I said
and what I meant were two different things, unfortunately.

It seemed like you were in a bad mood, and I was in a bad 
mood held off mainly by the warring, and others were already in bad 
moods... so that's why I suggested both sides were overreacting, thought 
everyone would benefit from time to cool down, and why I waited until now 
to reply to the thread.

Okay.

Because the thing I'm most worried about is the way this is poisoning our 
atmosphere. I haven't been around here as long as many (most?) of you, so 
I'm not sure I'm fit to judge. But I've seen a group of people that were 
having fun here go to making bitter accusations within the space of a 
couple of days. And that hurts. It was bad enough to see the bile from 
Roy Rim, who wasn't a regular poster. It's even worse seeing something 
like it from regular participants.

Well, I really haven't seen anything vehement yet.  Aaron seems to not be
thinking about how spam affects others, but other than that...

Can we *all* take a step back, take a deep breath, and agree to cool down 
for a little while, before posting in anger or frustration? I don't 
pretend for a moment that this will fix the underlying problems... but I 
hope we can at least be civil about discussing them, and -- as you say -- 
avoid making enemies. We've already talked about having consideration for 
others; let's try and include posting angry comments in this 
consideration, OK?

Well, I'm doing my best.  I usually start out fine, but I start taking
offense easily.  When I asked everyone to stop calling me "Monchichi, the
Monkey Boy" because I thought it was offensive, and WWolf took a last
potshot at me, that pretty much made up my mind to leave the list for
a bit.  I guess I need to calm down sometimes, too.

I'm not going to point any fingers.  I'm going to ask, POLITELY, like
WWolf did, that you guys keep it under control.  I'm not out to make
enemies (as it seems I have, unfortunately),

   No, not enemies.  I was upset, and reacted harshly (perhaps), but I
hardly think that makes us enemies.

Okay, glad to hear that.  Firehawke, on the other hand, seemed to take
it a lot worse than you did, for which I'm saddened.

This is why I think it would have been a really good idea if everyone had 
taken the time to cool down before reacting. If it had just been the post 
on the ML, I doubt it would have been a violent or poisonous fight. If 
you had just said on IRC that you were worried (or even upset) about the 
levels of spam on the ML, that you had posted about it, and that you 
hoped we would read the post and think about it, again things might have 
been all right. (Especially if we'd all decided to do that with cooler 
and less tired minds.) But you seemed (please forgive me if I'm putting 
words in your mouth) to be upset and frustrated, in that mood you said 
you hoped WW'd kill the sig war, and that touched off the spark. And with 
some of us also in bad moods, we overreacted instead of responding 
calmly... and that just made things worse. Talking in anger is something 
I think we were all guilty of, and I hope we can all remember it and 
avoid a blowup again.

Well, from what I can remember (I didn't save my log), I'd mentioned that
this was just too much spam.  The sig war on the FFML (which had migrated
to IRC, on #ffml, much to my distress at the time), was just annoying me
to death, and I hoped WWolf would do something about it.  Yes, it came
out "kill", even though that's not what I intended.  What I *did* try to
do was explain what I meant after that.  Of course, I'd already offended
people, so not very many listened.

[snipped for brevity]

Part of the problem here is that this time there wasn't one easily 
splittable thread. There's been the ongoing Barney/dimensional warring 
thread, which spawned Balisu's Muse as a separate and distinct thread; 
there's the joking back and forth about A-Kon and various hypothetical 
revenges there; there's the actual Sig War thread and the Wedding 
thread... Not counting Robma's Sig War summary posts, because I think 
organized and written out as digests, they *do* form parts of a fanfic 
story. (Hey, it's set in Nerima, the Ranma gang appear as peripheral 
characters...)

That's why it's hard to say "Split it off into another ML" -- any one of 
the threads would probably be tolerable on its own to those who don't 
like it, none of the threads is probably large enough (or long-duration 
enough) to support its own ML, and I'm not sure they're related enough to 
group them together in an ML. (Though I could be wrong.) 

One of the other posters mentioned a social ML that could easily
accommodate all of this.  OTOH, it would be easier just to be careful
about the level of spamming, which everyone has already agreed to do
from what I've been reading.

It's not to much to ask, but I'm not sure how workable it is in practice 
if you're serious about not wanting to close down all spam. What is 
"worthwhile" or "fun" spam, and what is "junk spam"? I think neither of 
us want tons of thoughtless posts... but I at least don't want to see 
people huddled in self-censorship, too worried or nervous to post 
*anything* in lighthearted fun.

Here's a quick rule of thumb:  if you have to stop and think whether or
not very many people would be interested in reading the spam, don't post
it.  Of course, that would exclude things like the .sig war (which I
personally don't care for anyway), which some have already made it clear
they don't mind in reasonable amounts.  It's always going to be a piece
by piece judgement call, and I'm not going to point fingers at what is
and what isn't worthwhile.

There's a line to be drawn between these 
two extremes, but I'm not at all sure where to draw it -- and as a 
result, I'm leaning more towards the latter position. Some of the 
carefree nature of the ML has been killed for me, and I mourn that. 
Another part of the "poisoning of the atmosphere" that I talked about 
above. I hope that in time this will blow over, and a happy medium can
be worked out... so that we can relax and have fun again, without looking
over our shoulders.

Maybe you weren't around when the posting stats got put up by WWolf and
everyone started "belt wars", seeing who could get the highest count,
but the same thing happened then.  People started complaining.  It isn't
really that the atmosphere has been "poisoned", and I'm sorry you see it
that way.  It's just that everyone needs to have a modicum of self comtrol
when they post.  Sometimes they forget that, and I'm not faulting them
for doing so.  I'm just trying to make a polite reminder.  Spam is fine,
but just give a little extra thought as to whether that post you're about
to send is a good idea.

[more snippage]

I hope everyone can at least take the comments about "posting in anger" 
to heart. It looked like you were already frustrated and upset, so I 
figured that was at least part of what was talking, and tried not to take 
it personally. But I really wished that part hadn't been talking at all. 
And I'm probably as guilty of this as anyone else... so please, call me 
on it if I am! I promise to try and follow my own advice. :)

Nope, not at all.  At least, not that I've seen.  But there *is* something
we should all take into consideration:  we're all human, which means none
of us are perfect.  We all might get a little offensive from time to time.
I'm just glad it's not being added to by people taking offense back.


Damon Casale, scyth@andrew.cmu.edu

				* Love *
                 Between two people, there is nothing that
                      can draw them closer together